Luckily, if your PC came with XP installed (and thus, not with a true XP CD), the necessary files are probably in a folder called C:\Windows\i386. But the recovery disc that came with your PC probably doesn’t have them. One place you’re sure to find them is an actual Windows installation CD-ROM. To create a CD, the program needs the Windows 2000 or XP installation files. You have to download, install, and run Bart’s PE Builder.
And it can run any portable Windows utility (that doesn’t require an installation) you care to give it.Ĭreating a BartPE disc isn’t as easy as double-clicking an. It doesn’t have much in the way of repair utilities, but it has chkdsk, which should probably be the first one you try. The BartPE operating system makes a pretty good boot disc on its own, getting you into Windows and letting you access your drive. Actions that take double-clicks in Windows, such as opening a file, take only one in Puppy. And even if it mounts read-only, you can still copy the files to an external drive, most of which are formatted in the universally accessible FAT32 file system.īut be careful how you click. Puppy Linux comes with AbiWord, which supports. If Puppy succeeds in mounting the drive with read/write permissions, you not only can copy your files elsewhere, but you can also edit them. Just open the Drives window and select a drive, and Puppy will mount it for you–in read/write mode, if possible.
Puppy isn’t the most powerful version of Linux by a long shot, but it’s great for accessing NTFS-formatted hard drives–especially if you’re not comfortable with Linux’s whole mount concept. If Windows won’t boot, nothing gets you into your hard drive faster or more easily than Puppy Linux. I’ll start with discs that simply give you access to the files on your hard drive, and work my way up to the powerhouses that can diagnose and repair most boot problems. But Linux can be an intimidating environment for the uninitiated, it doesn’t always handle NTFS well (many versions can read NTFS but not write to it), and it is seldom geared to help with Windows problems.
Linux Live CD: The name refers to any version of Linux you can download as an. The missing elements consist of Windows XP installation files you may or may not already have. But to avoid copyright infringement, he can’t give you everything you need to create a BartPE disc. Unfortunately, Microsoft maintains strict control, and few utility authors have received permission to use it.īartPE: Since Microsoft won’t share its preinstallation environment, Bart Lagerweij created his own, and he gives it away for free. Windows PE: The official, CD-bootable version of Windows (the PE stands for Preinstallation Environment) makes the obvious choice for this sort of thing. Since DOS doesn’t handle XP or Vista repairs well, each of these discs boots into one of the following three operating systems.
If that doesn’t happen, download and install ISO Recorder. iso file, there’s a good chance that a program you already own–perhaps Nero Burning or Easy Media Creator–will come up and burn it to CD. Here are six worthwhile emergency boot CDs, all downloadable, and most of them free. Since Microsoft doesn’t supply you with the ability to create an emergency boot disk, others have stepped in to fill the vacuum. Modern versions can’t make that floppy (they can format a bootable DOS floppy–if you have the drive–but without utilities), and DOS can’t handle NTFS hard-drive partitions.
If you had the forethought to create that floppy while Windows was still working, you were ready when it eventually failed.Īlas, the Windows Boot Floppy went the way of DOS (the operating system it actually booted). It came with a program that formatted a bootable floppy disk, complete with diagnostic and repair utilities. Way back in the 20th century, Windows prepared you for the day your PC wouldn’t boot.